As you said, not much of a milestone. .hack is better than SAO, but ironic enough, both came out around the same time in the early 2000s. It's just that SAO remained as light novels (that stayed in Japan) until the early 2010s and got an anime and manga adaption with loads of spin-offs. That said, I rather not go back to the .hack franchise. They all very in quality, and I pretty much stopped once I finished .hack_twlight way back in high school.
Out of all the .hack properties, the first anime has aged the worst.
I'm no expert on this, but some are and some aren't or can be described as isekai-lite at best. SAO technically counts for its original season. Though they're more so trapped in a video game. The rest you mentioned I have no idea.
Oh, yes, i liked that one as child.
It holds up well surprisingly. It's a bit darker than Digimon Adventure, and surprisingly, the Monster Rancher anime got little censorship in the States/West. The anime definitely holds up better than most of 4Kids from the mid and late 2000s.
I disagree about Monster Rancher. I liked it as a kid, but when I rewatched it as an adult it was kind of bad. Though it was quite a while ago now and I can't remember the details of the show too clearly. I also might have watched the English dub, so that could have been part of the problem. Digimon Adventure is really good, though.
The anime ain't perfect, don't get me wrong, but I like the characters and how the gang develops. I will say some of the animation in the early episodes don't hold up well, but that was the par at the time, and it still looks good. The last time I saw this was back in 2018-19, but I remember enjoying it good enough. I am sure sub is better subjectively, but the English dub isn't bad.
Let me know what you want to see, and I can hook you up. I know a lot of great anime that are either OVAs, movies, or 12-26 episode anime.
So far, the show's best episode is still the first. Which isn't uncommon I guess, but I was hoping it would be more or less that level the whole way through. The later episodes aren't bad, and there are some highlights, but there are definitely some cheaped out episodes.
I thought she got the time she deserved. I'm sure it'll be plenty more of her in a second season. I do wish they kept the dark green hair though.
The succubus that appears in SOTN, more or less dress is similar to her, so they are pretty much taking from the games. Ironic, as Lenore is an expy of the succubus from Symphony Of The Night.
I do at least appreciate her final(?) form looks kind of like a lion with the Egyptian sun disk behind her head. I guess I just want more backstory on how the whole Sekhmet thing plays into all of this. Like is she the OG Vampire or just one of the oldest vampires? And how did Dracula fit into all of that, since he's usually shown as the most powerful Vampire by virtue of being the most famous?
RoB is great presentation wise, but doesn't hold up as well gameplay wise compared to some of the Classicvanias. It's not bad, but both CV IV and Bloodlines especially; have better whip mechanics. RoB has the magic item crash mechanic, but Bloodlines already does that better when you have the whip/spear upgraded to flame mode.
Speaking of which, I guess some of the CV fans, notably on the r/Castlevania Subreddit are just super salty about Annette of all things. Because she's not the same Damsel in Distress plot coupon she was in Rondo....and apparently also because she's Black now.
I like all the main characters and find them interesting. I do agree that Annette becomes the most interesting character in this show. To be fair with Richter, even in RoB, he doesn't have much of a (tragic) backstory. He's just some guy that is already experienced and slightly older than his anime counterpart. RoB_Richter is already implied to be in his early to mid 20s. Maria has no backstory in the games. We don't even know if she has parents or not. RoB_Annette is just a damsel in distress. So all three of them are given expanded backstories or character development/arcs in some way. Though now all three of them have lost a mother now. So they all share something with each other. Four when you include Alucard, but he doesn't know that his parents came back to life at the end of the first show. Season 2 might reveal he found at some point, but this is me at WMG. Lisa was able to live her full life, but still died at some point due to old age.
The problem with moving pass L is that the story never really did that, they just got two L minus and just replayed the same beat. The story should have instead moved on and started looking at how society would reorganize around Kira being a thing and how people would start finding way to avoid the system, like hiding their name and such.
